Kidnapping
On 23 February 1958, Two unmasked armed gunmen entered the Hotel Lincoln in Cuba where Fangio was talking with one of his associates. One of the gunmen guarded the doorway while another pointed a pistol into Fangio's back and ordered him to leave the Hotel. Fangio was bundled into a nearby car which drove off at high speed. The forces led by Fidel Castro announced responsibility. Local police set up roadblocks at intersections and guards were assigned to private and commercial airports and to all competing drivers.
Fangio was taken to three separate houses and was allowed to listen to the race via radio with his captors bringing a television for him to witness the disastrous crash after the race concluded. In the third house, he was allowed his own bedroom but became convinced that a guard was standing outside of the bedroom door at all hours. The captors placed a blind-fold on Fangio which was worn for a majority of his capture and talked about their revolutionary programme which Fangio had not wished to speak about as he did not have an interest in politics.
Fangio was released after 29 hours and he remained a good friend of his captors afterwards. The captors motives were to force the cancellation of the race in an attempt to embarrass the regime of Fulgencio Batista. After Fangio was released, many Cubans were convinced that Batista was losing his power because he failed to track the captors down. The incident was dramatized in a 1999 Argentine film directed by Alberto Lecchi, Operación Fangio.
Read more about this topic: Juan Manuel Fangio